God will determine Taraba’s fate – Speaker

You have assumed the position of Speaker of Taraba Assembly for about three months now; how would you describe your experience so far?I must say my experience as Speaker of Taraba Assembly within the past three months has been quite challenging. Essentially I realized that as new Speaker I needed the cooperation of members to […]

You have assumed the position of Speaker of Taraba Assembly for about three months now; how would you describe your experience so far?
I must say my experience as Speaker of Taraba Assembly within the past three months has been quite challenging. Essentially I realized that as new Speaker I needed the cooperation of members to work as a team for better legislative results; bearing in mind that I could not go it alone. To this extent I can tell you that the three months experience has been quite encouraging.
Certain developments in the House preceded your emergence as Speaker. What really happened?
There were certain allegations against the former leadership of the House which prompted the invocation of the relevant Constitutional requirement. The allegations were brought on the floor of the House and after due process was followed, the past leadership was found wanting and impeached accordingly and I emerged as new Speaker. Of course changes in leadership are normal legislative occurrences; if today you wake up and find a change with new set of leaders the only thing to do is to take it as an act of God. There is no how a leadership can be removed without reasons.
One issue of serious concern in Taraba State is the continued absence of Governor Danbaba Suntai; critics have argued that since governance is a continuum the relevant Constitutional provisions should be followed to ascertain the true state of his health and if possible empower the acting Governor to assume substantive status. What role is the Assembly playing in this regard?
Like you rightly pointed out Governor Danbaba Suntai was involved in an unfortunate air accident and taken abroad for medication, where he is recovering. Of course the House has a role to play and his continued absence has been a source of worry to us. But as you may be aware, the House cannot do anything without getting a medical report from the executive. We are however aware that the governor is fast recovering and based on this we are waiting for things to take proper shape because we cannot act when the governor is recovering.
There seems to be a polarization in the House between the impeached and the new leadership and in terms of loyalty to Governor Danbaba and the acting Governor; you have been accused of being loyal to the acting governor at the expense of Danbaba. For instance you were recently criticized for openly commending the acting governor…what is your reaction to this?
I wouldn’t want to believe that there is any such division because both the impeached and the new leadership belong to the same House. Of course you don’t expect people that are impeached to sit back and clap hands for you. Secondly, people are bound to criticize in situations like this but such criticisms must be rationale. Like you rightly said, I commended the acting governor for certain steps he has taken such as bringing about peace to the crisis in Wukari. For this I don’t know why people are reading meanings.
What would you consider as your major challenges so far?
My major challenges so far is the manner and way people misunderstand the House; people go about making a lot of insinuations that are not healthy. People go about with baseless rumors to tarnish the image of the House and I consider this as a challenge. Also in a House that an impeachment was carried out, there is bound to be bad blood and of course I am trying my best to make the former leadership to realize that having cooperated with them to the level that they reached before the impeachment, we expect the same level of cooperation to forge ahead in the interest of Taraba state. These are some of the challenges that we are trying to address.
How do you think the state can come clean in 2015?
If you look at Taraba politics, you will certainly know that the hand of God is with Taraba. So many people are on board now, courtesy of God’s making of people like governor Danbaba. He did not vie for governorship but God decided to bring him on board. So that same God will do it this time around. God is the final answer to our political problems and will intervene to make 2015 smoother.
What about agitations for power shift to the Southern part of Taraba in 2015?
In politics, we have what we call arrangement. It is our belief and the belief of every Tarabian that at least if you are in to business, the interest of that business would be shared accordingly. We know that the northern part of the state has produced the governor who served for two terms and in the central, we now have Danbaba on board. Therefore it is expected that power should shifted to the south but we have a great task ahead of us; we must be united as a body if we want to realize what we think is our right. You cannot be disunited and be thinking of power shift because there is going to be a serious problem.
There are also concerns that religion is becoming a serious factor in Taraba politics…
Really in Taraba we have Christians, Muslins and pagans. We are aware of the existence of these religions. In spite of all these, we have been forging ahead politically and to me personally, I am not afraid because I believe that we shall get along the way we have been doing.
After the sacking of  some commissioners. some people have accused the House of being used by the executive; what is your reaction?
Like I earlier stated, the House has a watchdog role to play. If people are saying that the House should keep mute in the face of corruption, then that is a food for thought but as far as I am concerned when we see glaring cases of corruption, we will definitely expose it and that was exactly what we did. The questions to ask are; should the House fail in its duty to expose corruption; are they saying that those involved did not actually misuse the funds released by the Federal Government for flood victims? Some people are even adducing religious coloration in the whole thing which was not the case. What the House did was to carefully look at the involvement of each person and came up with a report which recommended the punishment.  I want to also assure you that the House was not used.
Since you became the Speaker, have you made attempts to see the ailing governor?
I made an effort to go and see him but at that time, they said the governor would be returning, so I had to hold on. But now I am making fresh plans to go and visit him.
We are hearing that he would be returning soon…?
Based on what the people who were there to see him said, we are expecting him very soon.
Is it true that you are being positioned to be deputy to the acting Governor?
Those who are saying so are making a mistake. It is God that gave me this current position and I am not thinking of vying for any position because the God that brought me as Speaker knows where next He is taking me to.